


The Colour of your Smile

by naughtyspirit



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:34:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naughtyspirit/pseuds/naughtyspirit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson before Sherlock isn't entirely a mystery, but something too pretty not to explore. Pre meeting Sherlock, why was he so invisible, except by choice?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When you are the moon...

John is careful, measured, _safe_. He thinks in prose, each sentence structured in proper case, punctuated with identifiable ease. His mind, no longer quick, is barely troubled as he lets himself slip through each day, blurring out the edges of the page where the interesting things lie. He doesn't look for them and they don't look for him. He is solid, absolute and utterly incapable of spending today differently than yesterday.

John is not a rock, but a pebble, washed down the stream, indifferent to what pushes him or where he'll end up. He has worked to become so, to be untainted by his surroundings and his brilliance is that it is now achieved. He is nothing, smooth and unvarnished and when he speaks to people, he is entirely forgettable. Eyes pass over him in a crowd and he dwells within the quiet, hidden within London itself.

And yet perhaps even here he has gone too far, because he is almost too still and in itself that peace is too much to attribute to the silent soldier. He stands a little too straight, holds his head a little too high and when women look at him, they walk away disquieted, aware of some potential missed. When men look at him, they gather their coats tighter, touch wallets and phones, check all exits without knowing quite why.

He doesn't smile now, at least he hasn't for longer than he can remember flexing those  particular muscles. But oh, when he does, it is devastating. It rises from one side to the other, not slipping but bursting across his features and turning his face from merely pleasant to inescapable in a single gesture. His teeth, strong and straight, revealed by warm lips and the faintest hint of tongue behind them. He is impossible to miss when he smiles.

So he does not. He is resolute, absolute and not about to change while there are no tides to control. He paces the street, his limp absent in all but mind and sometimes he stutters a step in memory. He moves, his face open but for the eyes and they are hidden. The blue in them has died, only grey remains and he sees everything through a veil. He drew it some time ago and sees no reason why things should change now.

Nothing ever happens to him. He has made his choices and they are hidden.

He sees everything and files it away carefully, considerate in gesture and likable when in company. They like him, whoever they are. He's gentle company and buys a round in before it's his turn, despite the lint in his pockets. He nods along with the conversation and those who speak tell him he should come round, give him endless invites and yet scarcely notice that he isn't there.

He's never there. His eyes are focused on a different sky and his fingers twitch in memory of a weapon he hasn't held close to his chest in far too long. When he closes his eyes his thoughts threaten to compose themselves again in quick little lists. Each step is simple and the command line is clear. He is together with his eyes closed, a man made entire by the simple knowledge that purpose is within his grasp.

A single blink can spark the memory and if his companions were to level a single criticism it is that his stare can be a little constant. Little touches, little tensions and John moves on, his impact reduced to less than the cane at his knee. His fingers brush it as if to control and yet he's aware it controls him, keeps away the threat that he could still matter, that he could still be the man at the front. On point. En Pointe and ready to move. A rare balletic grace his brilliant brain has let slip away along with his wit and John refuses to miss it.

He is the world entire and that he is waiting seems lost on him. He doesn't know what he's waiting for, just that when he looks at the sky before him, there is a specially shaped hole he does not know how to fill. It is the shape of a single being, one he has not yet met, the one that matters.

He is aware of the hole but not of the thing that will fill it and his head aches when he allows himself to think about it. If he does think hard enough he believes the hole is the war, but he's almost wrong about that. When He comes, when He arrives in John's life, ethereal and a hair's breadth away from faerie, John will bloom and overfill that space until there is nothing else, the earth will fall and John will smile again. He will reflect and refine the single imperfect man in the world capable of bringing the game on.

But until he comes, John is a search light, constantly watching for the change that threatens. Small steps won't do it, just one thing, one man and a leap that will bring him into the path of the sun again. He knows no more than that change will burn him and the coldness of his own place is frighteningly secure. He has composed himself of the dark side and his essential rightness is battling to ensure that he is ready when the time comes.

So for one last night he wakes with tears missing from his cheeks. One last morning he opens his eyes and sees only the small dark room with a more than a touch of the spartan about it. He slides into his clothes, aware he should do something about the state of them and not caring too much, because no-one would notice if he did. He grasps the cane out of habit, feels the limp sink in like an old friend, leans on it hard and with one deep breath he opens the door and steps out into London. 


	2. The sun has got his hat on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where else to look but at Sherlock just before John arrives?

Sherlock loves himself. There isn't a single second of his day that he questions the absolute bliss that is being Sherlock 'bloody' Holmes. He gallops from one end of London to another, blasting through each and every inaccuracy until he has the imperfect truth at the tip of his tongue. And when it explodes out of his mouth he stands still ever so briefly, ears tuned to the applause that never quite comes. It should, he's well aware that he should be drowning in it, ears ringing from the admiration that should so rightfully be his, but it isn't, wasn't and hasn't been evident for so long that he has decided to accept its absence as part of the known world.

This is how Sherlock sees the day; divided neatly into unknown segments which must each be neatly divined and assimilated into his existence. Each time he gets it absolutely right he celebrates alone. Each time he gets it wrong, he pauses, assesses and refuses a single acknowledged second to pass before he can adjust, realign and never be wrong about that again. And thus filed, he moves on to the next unknowable thing.

An unknowable world is every last puzzle he desires and yet the pieces are so dull that he longs for someone to shine them up, refine and make them pretty. Someone who will make them interesting and alive again. He is quite sure that the people he meets are already dead, their life stories beyond simply dull and willfully ignorant. Their only interest for him is the single penetrating moment when death strikes. And even then, he doesn't think they deserve an interesting death unless it benefits him by being notable, unfathomable, unsolvable. He longs for the shine of a cadaverous puzzle, but never stops to believe for one minute that his life is lacking without it.

He doesn't think he lacks anything within his reality. He's quite sure that Mycroft added complication with his interest in Sherlock's affairs and seeks wherever possible to eliminate it. If it was within his power he would deconstruct the world entire and observe closely as it is built from scratch. He is no builder of worlds, and by definition is the most destructive thing in it. He breaks apart each toy provided, clever little items where each tiny speck discovered builds insight and depth for intelligence within design.

Need is a driving force in his life. He doesn't have wants or anything that could be truly called a desire. But he needs everything to make sense and is irrevocably tangled when it doesn't. It's a hitching of breath, a moment when things aren't what they are. And in those glorious seconds where he doesn't understand, he is at his finest, elevated to a point where doubt is hanged like the torturous bastard it is. He binds it close, rope knotted, sealed and as the revelation is seized upon, drops it from a great height with a gleeful expression crowding his face.

There are those quite haunted by the smile that blooms across a mouth crafted by Rossetti's brush. It's gloriously pink, arched and full and there are those who believe it should be gifted to a creature less callous, more able to love and accept love in return. The curl of a lip, the slight, breathy opening of that mouth that infers not stupidity in others but illumination in self, all contrive to make the casual observer believe that Sherlock Holmes does not know and has never known passion. This while he busies himself chasing down the unknown, leaping gleefully into danger and uncertainty with the knowledge that he will stand triumphant again.

They see him at his most convincing, the mask firmly in place, whichever he chooses. He is lover, priest or judge, developed full form in every circumstance. They believe when he speaks, looking at his eyes, or his mouth or the elaborate flex of his fingers. He speaks and they believe. For there is no threat from them, not even at his casual jibes. They do not know him and only see that he is unflinching and ethereal. They long for his reality in the knowledge that it is cruel and that they would burn if he turned that light on them.

And in those rare moments when he smiles outside of character, there is no-one to share it with, to see the man within the hidden arena. He has sought solitude and excellence and in that he is victorious, standing bloody and alone, arms raised and face turned to the sun that beats down on his skin. He glows in those moments, but his ears ring hollow. There is no answering cry, no returned glory and while he has accepted his uniqueness, (rather than the hideous idea of loneliness) he does not understand what the missing component is.

He has buried it too deeply and doesn't know where the frustrating absence comes from. This is the single mystery Sherlock cannot unravel and he has no idea that the solution will arrive in a solid, comfortable form, a boyish giggle that emerges from the battlefield with a tremor in one hand and a cane in great need of abandonment. He cannot see the round, honest face that will reflect the missing applause of the world. He does not know that there will be someone to run with, to laugh with and that Sherlock will learn neatly to share, embrace and treasure another presence within reality.

And so he selects an appropriate slide as he focuses the microscope, hands steady and mind keen, free of the complication he awaits in the most real man to exist. He doesn't look up, neither of the room's inhabitants interest him in the slightest and its his own distraction that allows for the tiniest slip in joining social niceties; he mentions a flat, well placed and beautifully arranged for him with the smallest of complications. The issue so simple that he could solve it quickly were he not caught up in the possibility of serial suicides. But the man speaks, reality changes and Sherlock refocuses his gaze.

"I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone kind enough to leave comments and kudos. I'm really enjoying writing!

**Author's Note:**

> It's been ten years since I typed anything more than meeting notes and that was in a completely different fandom. This is the first time I've sat down at the laptop to write instead of read and I'll admit it's a little nerve wracking but it felt so good to work through this that I'm happy it's started.


End file.
